[Solo] Diana Stanley - The Spell Breaker

Deck Changelogs:
1.) Replaced Defiance with Dodge as it is more reliable.
2.) Replaced Wither with Read the Signs. In my experience, I can easily get Shrivelling via Arcane Initiate, so I switched to a clue gathering card instead.
3.) Removed Ritual Candles and Dark Prophecy and replaced it with Machete instead for early enemy management. I'm still testing whether Spectral Razor is a better choice.
4.) Inspiring Presence and Fearless are both good replacements for Take the Initiative. Guts Overpower and Perception are also good to speed-up your card draw. I'll leave it up to your preference.

Summary of Changes:
-1 Ritual Candles, -2 Dark Prophecy, -2 Take the Initiative
+2 Machete, +2 Guts, +1 Perception

Strategy:
Quickly build-up your willpower to strengthen your investigator. The limit of your special ability is once per phase so it is possible to gain +4 in one turn. With half the deck focused on cancelling, it's easy to get +5 willpower in 3 to 4 turns.
Diana's special ability + Arcane Initiate speeds up the card draw to the point that I usually end the scenario with around 5-7 cards left in the deck.
Once you're around 5 willpower, you are almost unstoppable as you can deal with most of what the scenario throws at you.
The main challenge with this deck is usually in the early game when you face enemies with high fight value or locations with high shroud value (3+).

Early Game:
1.) Focus on racking up your willpower by using Ward of Protection, Dodge and Holy Rosary. You may also have to sacrifice your Dark Insight.
2.) Search your Machete using Prepared for the Worst.
3.) Arcane Initiate serves a lot of purpose in this deck:
-Search for your essential spell cards like Shrivelling and Sixth Sense
-Horror Soak
-Gives you a chance to delay the drawing of your weakness through reshuffling.

Middle Game:
1.) Once you have around +3/+4 Willpower, aim on getting your Twilight Blade via Prepared for the Worst. This is to allow you to re-use your cancel/ignore cards.
2.) Use Olive McBride as horror soak before consuming her.
3.) Reserve one of your Deny Existence for your signature weakness. It's a critical hit especially later when you have 3+ cards underneath Diana. Remember that you already start with 2 mental trauma due to Arcane Research.

Late Game:
1.) You can use the Delay the Inevitable trick with Twilight Blade to help you fight Elite and Boss enemies:
-Pay 2 Resource to Play Delay the Inevitable
-Cancel Enemy Attack, Gain 1 Resource
-Upkeep Phase: Gain 1 Resource
-Repeat Cycle using Twilight Blade
2.) Shrivelling's side effect can be countered by Eldritch Inspiration or soaked by your allies and the Holy Rosary

Essential Upgrades:
1.) Prioritize on maxing your Shrivelling and Sixth Sense. These are your main tools especially later in the campaign.
2.) Upgraded Ward of Protection, "I've had worse…", Deny Existence and Counterspell.
3.) Replace Holy Rosary with Police Badge. The horror soak from the Rosary is good but having two extra turns will allow you to have some clutch plays.
4.) Upgraded Storm of Spirits. More AoE damage = Less number of actions to kill enemies.

Optional Upgrades:
1.) Upgraded Arcane Initiate. Replacing 1 Doom with 2 Horror saves you a turn but the 3XP cost is just too much. :(
2.) Upgraded Fearless, Seal of the Elder Sign
3.) Upgraded Mists of R'lyeh. This card is a lot more useful in TFA campaign

Untested Ideas:
1.) Mind's Eye + Sign Magick. Mind's Eye is one hell of a card but the challenge is on how to quickly draw this card because I only mulligan weaknesses. I wish Mystics have their own version of Mr. Rook ^_^
2.) Replacing Machete with Summoned Hound. Who doesn't want their own Duke? Also, you can use Dark Insight to negate the weakness that comes with this card. I'll need some more testing with this though because the essential upgrades already costs lots of XP